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ASSOCIATE ENSEMBLE
TÊTE À TÊTE
OPERA COMPANY |
"Julian Grant’s lyrical score has a timeless quality superbly played by the excellent CHROMA, who also sit on stage"
The Stage
(on Odysseus Unwound, Oct 06)
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Although various CHROMA musicians had worked as freelancers on previous productions, CHROMA first worked as an ensemble with the innovative and much-lauded Tête à Tête on "Odysseus Unwound" in 2006, providing the orchestra and curating the education/outreach programme for the production. The website chronicling the very Odyssey-like adventures of the education team in Norway, England and Shetland is here.
Now officially established as Associate Ensemble, CHROMA is collaborating with Tête à Tête on its plans looking ahead for the next three years. In August 2007 the company launched its first and hugely successful Opera Festival, at Riverside Studios - an exciting, varied and unpredictable mix of performances, workshops and socialising, as Tête à Tête, opera
practitioners, opera fans and the simply curious took over the whole of Riverside Studios for three weeks. The festival returned to Riverside in August 2008 with more artists, works, Opera North, Scottish Opera, many sold out shows and a louder buzz of excitement.
2008 Opera Festival website. The 2009 festival " a kick up the aria" runs 30 July - 16 August.
November 2008 saw the world premiere of Philip Cashian's first opera, "The Cumnor Affair". The libretto is by Iain Pears, based on his own novel on the Robert Dudley wife-falls-down-stairs mystery, "An Instance of the Fingerpost" .
The Guardian:
"This pacey one-acter is something of which the company can be proud"
The Times:
“Cashian’s skill is to mke the true mystery that of the human heart. His score, for CHROMA’s tiny ensemble of seven players, conducted by Tim Murray, is an electrocardiogram of Dudley’s heart, torn between a wife he loves and a Queen he adores.
Counterpointing his own long lines, first of ennui, then of impassioned mourning, is a sinister spooking of percussion, and a tense cross-hatching of violin, cello, flute and clarinet, as the courtiers William Cecil and Sir Francis Walsingham play out their own equally dark and complex loyalties.”
Evening Standard:
“Much of the character is within the tiny orchestra (CHROMA, half visible throughout), with wind instruments carrying the mystery, percussion the menace"
2007 premières were six opera shorts, dubbed "Blind Date", a fun and warmly received presentation of what one audience member described as "opera for the YouTube generation".
The Observer:
“a hilarious tour de force”
“Monty Python's imperishable 'parrot sketch' now has a potentially immortal operatic rival.”
The Guardian:
“it is perfectly articulated and sizzles with invention”
The Stage:
“the evening is a feather in the cap of artistic director Bill Bankes-Jones”
Coming up in 2009:
20 July - 16 August - the third Opera Festival at Riverside Studios
Box: Riverside Studios. 020 8237 1111.
16-22 November - Salad Days at Riverside Studios
Box: Riverside Studios. 020 8237 1111.
Tête à Tête: www.tete-a-tete.org.uk
Artistic Director: Bill Bankes-Jones
Music Director: Tim Murray
Associate Ensemble: CHROMA
Associate Designer: Tim Meacock
Associate Lighting Designer: Mark Doubleday
Adminstrator: Anna Gregg
PR: SoundUK
Company Secretary: Caroline Steane
Consultant: Sarah Playfair
"Top opera punchers above their weight 2008 : Rupert Christiansen's picks of those who most exceeded expectations in the past 12 months.
NO. 5: Bill Bankes-Jones. His small experimental group Tête à Tête continues to extend the barriers of what is operatically possible often with very entertaining results" The Daily Telegraph December 2008
"One of the best contemporary theatre groups
of any kind" The Times
"so beautifully played by CHROMA under
Tim Murray"
The Independent - Odysseus Unwound
"expert playing from the ensemble CHROMA
under Tim Murray's alert baton"
The Guardian - Blind Date
"The scoring is tailored to CHROMA's expert ensemble of clarinet, violin, horn, cello, flute
and tenor trombone"
The Independent - Blind Date
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 Amy Carson as Amy Dudley in
"The Cumnor Affair" Nov 08
 Stephanie Corley sings Julian Grant's "Anger" - "Blind Date" 07
 Danny Broad, Louise Mott
"Odysseus Unwound" 06
(Marcus Barcham-Stevens in background)
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